Mun Rover Help

[legoclone09]

I need to land my Karbonite rover on the Mun. I have a descent stage that I tested using Hyperedit and it works, but I can't think of a launch vehicle to get it there. You'll see my problem in the image...

I can't answer for about 10 hours, I'll look back at this when I wake up. Thanks in advance!

Edited August 15, 2015 by legoclone09

[Xannari Ferrows]

If you have aligned the center of mass with the contact point of the docking ports, you should be able to turn everything upside down, and build the vehicle like that. A standard medium+ launcher should be enough. You can control from the docking port oriented the right way relative to the launcher/OMS.

[Sharpy]

Option 1: laumch upside down. Not very aerodynamic but doable.\

Option 2: orbital reconfiguration. You have two tubes attached in T shape. Attach them in line on top of the orbital vehicle, then move to the right position in the orbit.

Option 3: this tower is asking for trouble for the landing time. Redesign the landing stage, e.g, attach a wide, flat tank with engine to the rover's tail, then during the landing make it tip onto its wheels. Or give it a straddling lifter, reverse U shape. Personally, that would be my choice This thing will maneuver poorly and you'll have trouble landing it.

My personal recommendation: attach the tank and an engine to the end of the rover. Give it a single pair of landing legs, angled upwards, so that it will flip onto its wheels after a vertical landing. Have an engineer handy for fixing the broken wheels; you'll need him for normal operation anyway. (these wheels are fragile!). And move that reaction wheel into the rover. It's a very useful thing once you remap rover controls from WSAD to arrows or something else.

(allow me to name this lander style "Earwig configuration":

...one more option: give your rover flying capability. Driving long distances gets extermely tedious, and you can dump some extra fuel tanks shortly before landing, to land full.

[steve_v]

Set the top of the stack as the root part, save it as a sub-assembly, then put it on top of a rocket.

Or flip it upside-down and build the lifter under it.

You may need a bug ugly fairing to keep it out of the airstream on launch though, time to get creative.

My personal favourite is to build a skycrane type landing stage with the tanks parallel to the lander and radial engines... then the lander can be launched facing the "right" way.

- - - Updated - - -

You can get some pretty funky things to orbit, I can't remember where this was going... but it worked nicely

I got bored with slow rovers, that'll do 150km/h+ on the mun

Edited July 31, 2015 by steve_v

[Sharpy]

I got bored with slow rovers, that'll do 150km/h+ on the mun

from 0 to all wheels busted in 3 seconds

[steve_v]

Ahh, but vernors for "soft" landings. And why ya think there's so many wheels? Can stand to loose a few

All other parts rated for impact

[Geschosskopf]

I need to land my Karbonite rover on the Mun. I have a descent stage that I tested using Hyperedit and it works, but I can't think of a launch vehicle to get it there. You'll see my problem in the image...

Those USI Supply Rovers are so cute, I couldn't resist using one myself. I did it like this:

This shows the 2 key features of the descent stage:

* Radially attached engines for low CoM because on Mun, you ALWAYS land on a slope. The engines use those wedge-shaped radial decouplers, chosen because they leave no residue on the side of the rover.

* Small probe core on a cubic strut on top. By switching "control from here" between this and the rover cockpit, I can rotate the navball 90^. The small probe core on top is for landing, as shown in the pic. Once on the ground, the cockpit takes over.

To get this to Mun, I built this rocket under it:

The rover is vertically mounted inside the fairing with a decoupler on its rear attach node. Because the root part is the rover cockpit, the navball is fine for all the spaceflight part. Once I got to Mun and staged the rover off the rocket, I switched control to the small probe core on the roof for the landing, then back to the rover cockpit for driving.

Once safely on the ground, I staged off the radial descent engines. Each one had a TAC Self-Destruct charge on it so I could celebrate the landing with fireworks .

And all was fine. As you can see here, no decoupler residue on the sides. You also get a better idea of how the small probe core is mounted.

[legoclone09]

Thanks guys! Last night I was thinking about an upside down one, so I'll probably do that. For my test landing I did use Control From Here. Also with my test landing I saw a Mun Arch for the first time!

[legoclone09]

Those USI Supply Rovers are so cute, I couldn't resist using one myself. I did it like this:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/384/19362916954_b904153c28.jpg

This shows the 2 key features of the descent stage:

* Radially attached engines for low CoM because on Mun, you ALWAYS land on a slope. The engines use those wedge-shaped radial decouplers, chosen because they leave no residue on the side of the rover.

* Small probe core on a cubic strut on top. By switching "control from here" between this and the rover cockpit, I can rotate the navball 90^. The small probe core on top is for landing, as shown in the pic. Once on the ground, the cockpit takes over.

To get this to Mun, I built this rocket under it:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/506/19797482648_169e0ce948_b.jpg

The rover is vertically mounted inside the fairing with a decoupler on its rear attach node. Because the root part is the rover cockpit, the navball is fine for all the spaceflight part. Once I got to Mun and staged the rover off the rocket, I switched control to the small probe core on the roof for the landing, then back to the rover cockpit for driving.

Once safely on the ground, I staged off the radial descent engines. Each one had a TAC Self-Destruct charge on it so I could celebrate the landing with fireworks .

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/391/19798851399_148ffae7bb_b.jpg

And all was fine. As you can see here, no decoupler residue on the sides. You also get a better idea of how the small probe core is mounted.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/293/19977825532_cbb2db1c55_b.jpg

Also, is that a TweakScaled Reaction Wheel I see?

[Geschosskopf]

Also, is that a TweakScaled Reaction Wheel I see?

No, just a pair of 0.625m size reaction wheels on the lower sides. That part did used to be 1.25m until a few versions ago but Squad shrank it, not me.

[legoclone09]

No, just a pair of 0.625m size reaction wheels on the lower sides. That part did used to be 1.25m until a few versions ago but Squad shrank it, not me.

No, I mean on the lifter under the fairing. You have 3.75m parts with a normally 2.5m part under the fairing.

[Geschosskopf]

No, I mean on the lifter under the fairing. You have 3.75m parts with a normally 2.5m part under the fairing.

Now, that's a 3.75m reaction wheel from Space-Y Heavy Lifters. It's just painted the same as the 2.5m

Also, the OMS engine (a Quad Poodle) and the very thin 3.75m tank between it and the 3.75m SAS are from the Taurus HCV mod.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Geschosskopf